for his cause he could not say nor hint any such a thing,
but walked along in dogged silence. The sky was overcast and cheerless,
and a chill wind blew, but Shorty never knew such a radiant hour.

"Well, why don't you say something? What's become o' your tongue?" began
Maria banteringly.

"Have you bit it off, or did some girl, that you bolted off in such a
hurry to see, drain you so dry o' talk that you haint got a word left?
Who is she? What does she look like? What made you in sich a dreadful
hurry to see her? You didn't go clear up to Bad Ax, did you, and kill
that old widower?"

"Maria," called out Si, "if you don't stop plaguin' Shorty I'll come
back there and wring your neck. You kin make the worst nuisance o'
yourself o' any girl that ever lived. Here, you go up there and walk
with Cousin Marthy. I'll walk with Shorty. I've got something I want to
say to him."

With that he crowded in between Maria and Shorty and gave his sister a
shove to send her forward. Shorty flared up at the interference. Acute
as his suffering was under Maria's tongue, he would rather endure it
than not have her with him. Anyhow, it was a matter between him and her,
with which Si had no business.

"You oughtn't to jaw your sister that way, Si," he remonstrated
energetically. "I think it's shameful. I wouldn't talk that way to any
woman, especially sich a one as your sister."

"Whose sister is she, anyway?" snapped Si, who was as irritable as a
hungry and tired man gets. "You 'tend to your sisters and I'll 'tend to
mine. I'm helpin' you. You don't know Maria. She's one o' the best girls
in the world, but she's got a doublegeared, self-actin' tongue that's
sharper'n a briar. She winds it up Sundays and lets it run all week.
I've got to comb her down every little while. She's a filly you can't
manage with a snaffle. Let her git the start and you'd better be dead.
The boys in our neighborhood's afeared to say their soul's their own
when she gits a-goin'. You 'tend to the other girls and leave me to
'tend to her. She's my sister--nobody else's."

[Illustration: HAVE COME, SIR, IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE OF INDIANA TO
DEMAND THE RELEASE OF THOSE MEN. 199]

Shorty fell back a little and walked sullenly along. The people at the
house were expecting them, and had a bountiful supper prepared. A good,
sousing wash in the family lavatory in the entry, plentifully supplied
with clear water, soap, tin basins and clean roller towels, helped muc